Question

I’d like to overwrite the PHPExcel_Cell_DefaultValueBinder::dataTypeForValue() method WITHOUT touching the library PHPExcel, so that I would not have problems to upgrade the library later.

As a matter fact, I am doing this to solve a problem of convertion of numbers into strings and I just wanted to know how to overwrite a method so that I can continue using the library with no later problem.

Answer 1

You can make a new class which would inherit from PHPExcel_Cell_DefaultValueBinder, and override the function dataTypeForValue.

<?php
class PHPExcel_Cell_MyValueBinder extends PHPExcel_Cell_DefaultValueBinder {

    public static function dataTypeForValue($pValue = null) {
        if (/* your condition */) {
            // if you want to return a value, and i guess it's what you want, you can
            return PHPExcel_Cell_DataType::YOUR_TYPE;
        }
        // you call the fonction PHPExcel_Cell_DefaultValueBinder::dataTypeForValue();
        // so the already existant conditions are still working.
        return parent::dataTypeForValue($pValue);
    }

}
?>

After, just use PHPExcel_Cell_MyValueBinder instead of PHPExcel_Cell_DefaultValueBinder, using at the top of your code :

PHPExcel_Cell::setValueBinder(new PHPExcel_Cell_MyValueBinder());

So PHPExcel will use your own ValueBinder for the rest of the execution 🙂